The Devil Walks Free
by Iamepical
Summary: When Ronnie leaves following Danielle's death she breaks Jack's heart. Now, two years later, she returns with a daughter and she struggles to rebuild relationships with the people she left behind, harbouring a secret which has already ruined lives.
1. Prologue

_**Parts of this will be based on the TV show, parts won't. This is set a few weeks after Danielle's death and Ronnie has lost the plot and can't cope with her grief. Also, btw, when she arrives two years later in the next chapter Archie never died. Sorry if I mess up the ages in this btw. I know Roxie is 30/31. Not sure about Ronnie but I guess about 34? Anyway, enjoy! Reviews much appreciated!**_

"Don't go," he pleads, his words coursing through her veins, cold as ice. She closes her eyes and tries to shut out the image of him standing there, hopeful and expectant. But the image is impossible to erase from her mind. Nothing can make leaving Jack easier. She has convinced herself that she leaving is the best thing for both of them, but that doesn't stop her loving him.

"I have to, Jack. I can't stay here. Not after everything that has happened. There are too many dark memories here for me,"

She looks out of the window at the square below. The crowd is already beginning to emerge amid the hoarse yells of stall owners through the morning air. Iridescent rays of gold struggle to find their way through the clouds, a constant war. Raucous laughter rips through the air like a gust of wind and already customers begin to band on the front doors of the Queen Vic. All of them are encapsulated in the blissful bubble of their day-to-day life; none of them know or care that right now a woman who they live along side is suffering from emotional turmoil. They will not care that the woman they have dubbed 'The Ice Queen' is experiencing a meltdown. She envies them, envies there steady lives: happy and oblivious.

Jack stares at her as if trying to see into her mind and gauge the words which will make her change her mind. He doesn't know that there are no words which can make her stay now. She has to leave, has to escape the shadows that stalk her through Albert Square.

"I'm asking you to say, Ron. For me. I need you. Let me help you," he grabs both her hands, his skin pleasantly warm against hers. Their noses are almost touching. She wants to look away; wants to look anywhere except his endless eyes that are dancing with love for her. But she can't bring herself to. It takes all her willpower to step back from him and she can feel his dismay, scorching her, burning intensely until red explodes on her cheeks, fireworks on a blank canvas.

"Please Jack, just let me go. I can't do this anymore. You can't help me. It's over," she tries to add a sense of finality to her tone, but she can't. Her voice quivers as she speaks.

Again, she finds herself looking out of the window and staring down at the cold, grey road below. She can see where Danielle died from here. The skid marks from the tyres are still visible, an ugly reminder that death's cruel hand has snatched an innocent life from that spot. No one drives down there anymore if they can avoid, as if they are afraid the past might repeat itself.

But Ronnie has to walk down that road every day.

And every time she hears the screech of the tyres as they strain to stop and she sees Danielle turn round as she calls her name; sees the beginnings of a joyous smile tug at the corners of her lips with the realisation that the mother she has longed for wants her while her blonde hair dances with the wind. Then finally she relives the moment when her daughter's petite body is knocked into the air, scarlet ink splattering the ground as she falls backwards with her hair billowing behind her, an angel's halo. Ronnie didn't need to see the fleeting hope in Danielle's eyes distinguish to know it was over, that she was dead. She already knew when she was forced to her knees as if half the life had been drained from her. Now she pictures her baby's body lying limp in her arms like a rag doll, discarded and unimportant. In that instant she knows she is making the right decision. She can't stay here, not for anyone. Even for the one man she loves more than anything.

"I won't let you go. You need someone to take care of you. Why can't you let me be that person? I love you?" He steps towards her and cups the back of her head softly. She doesn't move away, needing to feel Jack's skin on hers for the last time so she won't forget. He kisses her then, gently at first but then when she makes no attempt to stop him with a passion neither of them would ever have believe possible before that moment. For a moment she pictures the life they should have had, the life they should have had with Danielle, but then the image if brutally torn away by reality. Danielle is dead. And her relationship with Jack needs to end. If she stays here her life will only be fraught with darkness. She pulls away from him.

"This isn't love! We just keep hurting each other. People who 'love' each other don't do that!" she spits at him, forcing contempt into her voice.

"You don't mean that. I know you don't mean that," a hurt expression flits across his face, wounded by her vicious words. Guilt seizes her, but does her best to ignore it. If hurting Jack is the only way to make him understand then she will do it. She needs to be free.

"I mean it, Jack! What we had was never love. I don't know what it was, but it wasn't love,"

Rage simmers behind his eyes then for the first time. He grabs her wrist and she tries to wrench it away, but he won't let go, refuses to believe her.

"Why do you always do this? Why do you always shut out the people who care you? I know you're not the heartless bitch you pretend to be. You can't just leave. What about us? What about Roxie and your niece?" his voice softens as tears begin to fall down her cheeks, finally released from their prison. "I know you care,"

"Don't you understand?" she shouts, her own anger exploding like a volcano. "I _can't _stay here. Not where the man who murdered my daughter is. I'm doing this for Roxie and Amy; I don't want them watch as I fall to pieces, I don't want my little sister seeing me like this. What good am I to Amy when every time I look at her I wish she doesn't exist because it should be _me _with a child, not Roxie!"

Tears stain her cheeks now, her breath coming in ragged rasps. Why did everything always have to be so hard, to be so complicated? She didn't want this. All she needed was to leave, to cut all her ties with the place that had made her life hell.

She tries to shake away Jack's hand again, not able to stand the way his skin scorches hers. He lets go this time. A deafening silence descends upon the room, ensnaring them both in its unrelenting grasp.

"Running away isn't the answer, Ron," he murmurs, reaching out to wipe away her tears with his thumb.

She turns away from him, reaching down to grab her suitcase from beside the door.

"I'll miss my flight," she announces, her voice becoming brisk, matter of fact, devoid of emotion. She heads towards the open door, dragging her suitcase unceremoniously behind her.

Jack watches her, hands falling limply to his side, a defeated man.

"Aren't you going to say goodbye to them?" he demands.

She doesn't answer, can't think of an answer. Instead she just walks towards the door and walks away from Jack and her old life. She has made up her mind and nothing Jack says will change it.

"I always knew you were weak and couldn't handle being needed Ronnie but I didn't know you were as selfish and cruel as your father,"

His words penetrate her like a bullet, unrelenting and bitter.

She could turn around and yell at him; she could tell him he is wrong, that she will stay; she could tell him she loves him. But she does none of those things, merely closing her eyes instead, unaware that Jack is doing the same.

It doesn't stop either of their hearts breaking.

She didn't want it to end like this, but does it really matter? It is over now and that is the only thing that is important.

She walks away leaving Jack staring after with both longing and resentment as she tries to forget him, forget Danielle, and look to the future.

**Lordi, it took me forever to write this. Poor Jack eh? I hoped you liked it. Constructive criticism welcomed! Look out for the next chapter!**


	2. Chapter 1 The Graveyard

**Hello. Ok, I know I said Ronnie returns to the square this chapter but I decided on next chapter. Besides, she needs a reason to want to go back first. And plus I needed a way to include this random dude into the story. Thanks for your reviews so far guys! Oh, just to warn you I have planned all this and it has a very depressing ending ;) Also I may need to change the rating because the descriptions will get quite graphics and it may turn out a bit like a horror story in places. Anyway, I'll stop ruining it for you all now.**

The graveyard is exactly how she remembers it: the wrought iron gates stand guard at the entrance, menacing and imposing. Her car rolls along the dirt path, the wheels eerily silent against the gravel. There is no sign of the wind's usual howl and even the trees have ceased their whispering, as if they are afraid of disturbing the dead buried below their roots. She still feels the same ache, the same ice cold grip tightening her around her heart as she becomes fully aware that her daughter is close to her. So close that soon she will be just six feet away; always near but never near enough to touch, a small gulf that death has created.

Hundreds of gravestones stand in a line, solemn reminders that only misery exists here. The snow pours down in a dignified manner, soldiers marching down from the heavens; already each strand of grass wears a white cap as winter rakes its hand across the ground. She wonders if Danielle liked the snow, if she played in it when she was a child. Ronnie never liked the snow, but she remembers how Roxie would race down excitedly on a Christmas morning to see if the sky had turned white.

"_Ronnie! Ronnie! It's snowing, look! Will you come outside and play with me?" she looks outside the window, already pulling a bobbled hat and scarf over her head. Her short blonde plaits stick out at odd angels from beneath the hat. Ronnie shakes her head, hating the way the bitter cold would bite through her gloves._

"_Aw, please! I'll wash your half of the plates for a week! Come on, it'll be fun. We can make snow angels and build an igloo,"_

Now she smiles to herself, recalling how easily she had relented on seeing Roxie's crestfallen face. There was nothing she wouldn't have done for her little sister. She would have done the same for Danielle too given the chance. But asking Danielle if she liked the snow is another of the million questions Ronnie will never be able to ask her.

Because Danielle is dead.

She doesn't want to return here, she hasn't ever planned on returning here after she left Walford nearly two years ago. Not after spending all this time rebuilding the rubble that was left of her life. But something has drawn her back tonight, as if she has had chains attached to her feet just waiting until she has moved far enough away only to drag her back again at the last moment. She hopes that visiting Danielle's grave now will finally bring her closure.

Ronnie turns around and checks on the toddler fast asleep in her car seat, thumb wedged firmly in her mouth. She smiles remembering how she had sucked her thumb until she started senior school. At first Holly was the only thing that stopped her being driven to insanity, stopped her from just getting in bed and never waking up again. The grief is easier now, still there, but easier. She thinks how different Holly is to Danielle with her mop of dark hair and large blue eyes compared to Danielle as a baby with fair hair and small, delicate features. The image of Danielle has almost faded from her mind completely. Most days she can only see a blonde girl standing in the distance, but on the days when she can hear her voice, gentle as a summer's breeze, she isn't sure if it is a true memory or how she has chosen to remember her daughter; in reality perhaps Danielle's voice was laced with the sorrow of never knowing her birth mother, or perhaps it was full of resentment to Ronnie for giving her away. Ronnie will never know now, but it doesn't matter. She doesn't want to forget, but she has to. For Holly. Otherwise they will never be able to move on with their lives, which is why she is here tonight; to say a final goodbye.

She remembers the way to Danielle's grave as sure as the sun rises in the east every morning. Her gravestone is three rows back, the ninth one along. The monument is an angry grey, dull amid the startling white and its edges are chipped, the writing faded. None of Danielle's family had the money for anything expensive, and Ronnie would have paid, but she had no right; still has no right to expect anything when she has never even known her daughter. As far as Danielle's family are concerned, Ronnie is nothing more than a woman who has donated her DNA.

She pulls the break in a violent motion and the engine splutters: dying. Before getting out the car she checks on Holly who is still sleeping soundly and ensures that the car door is locked. She draws nestles further into her coat as the wind instantly attacks her, clawing and biting as it tries to freeze her skin. Weeds have already sprouted from beneath the dirt, a depraved replacement for the flowers that bloom among the other graves. She reaches out to brush away the snow that has settles on top of the stone, not wanting Danielle's grave to become a victim to the weather so soon after her death. But it is impossible to preserve time; as soon as a few moments have passed the snow she has just brushed away is replaced again. When she looks back the set of footprints behind her have vanished with no evidence she has ever walked this way. Just like there is no evidence of Danielle's short life left in the world, her memory only preserved in unmoving, unfeeling photographs.

Ronnie kneels down and traces the diminishing epitaph with her fingers, thinking how her daughter's grave seems an unfair companion to her. In life Danielle was gentle, happy, kind but now she is gone she is left only with a cruel rock to keep her company while she sleeps.

_Here lies Danielle Jones,_

_the daughter who we loved very much._

_Rest in peace my darling._

_Love Mum and Dad._

Her fingers linger over her name, caressing the cursive letters as if it might somehow bring back Danielle. Ronnie never knew Danielle Jones, the young woman who died thinking she wasn't wanted, she only knew Amy. The little baby who was ripped from her arms just a few hours after her birth as Ronnie sobbed in the car.

_She is 14. The baby, the baby who has been a part of her for nine months lies sleeping her arms. She has been frightened, more frightened that she would ever admit, but now the little girl is here she knows exactly what to do. Ronnie still feels no more than a child herself and the sense of responsibility astounds her; she isn't sure how to hold her, doesn't know how to stop her crying, has no idea how she will change a nappy. But that doesn't seem to matter when she looks down at the baby and sees her tiny fingernails and delicate eyelashes with wispy blonde hair. Nothing has ever seemed so perfect, so real. She has no idea how she will raise a child, if she will be a good mum. But she does know that she already loves this baby more than life itself. And isn't love the only thing anyone truly needs?_

_In the front of the car Ronnie can see Archie eyeing her with hatred, critical and disapproving that his daughter has made such a stupid mistake. Outside the world races by in a rush of streetlights and darkness, but Ronnie hardly notices. She is too focused on the child clutched closely to her chest._

_The car stops._

_She hears the front door open and slam again as her Dad heads around to the back._

"_Is this the hospital?" she asks when opens the door, careful to shield her baby from the cold._

"_No," he sounds agitated, his voice gruff. "But a woman I know who is a midwife lives here. She'll take good care of you both,"_

_She nods nervously. Ronnie has always hated hospitals, but at least there she knows her baby will be safe there and not in the clutches of a woman Ronnie has never met._

"_Give her to me," he demands._

"_Her name is Amy," Ronnie decides suddenly. Amy suits her. Amy Mitchell._

"_Yes," he says, impatient. "Give me Amy,"_

"_No," she draws Amy closer to her chest. "I don't want to. This woman could be anyone. I don't want her near my baby. Take me to the hospital,"_

"_Ronnie, she just wants to check her over and make sure everything is ok. Then she'll make sure you are ok and you can have her back. Now give her to me," he commands, once again unable to hide the disgust he feels towards his daughter and new grandchild._

"_No," she shakes her head violently, blonde hair falling in front of her face. "Please, Dad. Just take us to the hospital,"_

"_Veronica, pass me the baby," his voice changes, dangerously low. "Before I loose my patience with you. You know what happens when I loose my patience,"_

_Her hand automatically flies to her cheek and rubs the area where her father struck her the last time she refused him something, still raw and bruised. When Roxie had asked her what it was she told her she had fallen, knowing what would happen if Archie ever discovered she told anyone the truth._

"_Her name is Amy, Dad," she repeats, not able to look as she hands her over into his arms. He holds her at length, regarding her as if she is something dirty, something unwanted. She has no choice but to give Amy to him, she knows what will happen if she doesn't. And she couldn't bare it if he hurt her little daughter._

"_Good girl, Veronica. Everything will be ok now," a sickening smile tugs at the corner of his lips, widening when Ronnie flinches as he caresses her hair._

"_Will you phone Joel when you come back? So he can find out what has happened. He'll want to come and see our daughter,"_

"_I don't see why not," he smirks._

_Then he walks away from her, the car door slamming with a resounding echo._

_A familiar clicking noise that she can't place pierces the silence._

_Ronnie has already begun to count the minutes when Amy will be back in her arms, safe and where she belongs._

_Outside a woman is waiting to greet Archie, half sobbing, half smiling as he places Amy into her arms. A man is stood at her shoulder, proud and blissful as he sees the baby for the first time. Suddenly, Ronnie screams; the blood-curdling cry rips explosively from her throat, tears bursting from her eyes. The cry is heart-wrenching, heart-wrenching enough to melt a diamond and it tears through the air, but somehow can't make its way through the car._

"_Dad!" she shrieks, voice hardly distinguishable through the tears. "Dad give her back! She's mine, she's my baby! You can't take her from me,"_

_Desperate, frantic, she hammers on the window, not caring when her skin begins to sting against the glass and her voice becomes hoarse._

"_Please give her back! She's my baby!" her voice fades, silent sobs manipulating her body._

_The woman and man head towards their house with Ronnie's baby, oblivious that right now her real mother's heart is being torn apart, her life ruined, shaped by one moment in time after just 14 years. Ronnie will never be the same again._

_Then the door closes. Closes behind them, shutting out Ronnie from her daughter's life, forming a barrier between Amy and herself which will never be broken._

"_Please don't take Amy," she murmurs, her face pale in the dark and permanently stained with sorrow and tears. The shadows behind here eyes will be there forever now. She doesn't know what to with her hands now the warm body lying in them minutes before has been snatched away._

_Hatred simmers inside her like a cauldron when she sees Archie walking back towards the car. She vows to herself then that one day he will pay; vows to herself that she will find a way to get Amy back and run away with her, away from the monster that is her father. One day he will regret this, he will show remorse._

_But right now he is only smiling._

Her breath depends, ragged and harsh as she relives every detail of that night inside her mind. It is as vivid as the snow now, flurrying around her without regarding whoever might be below. She will never forget that day; it will haunt her until her death. But she hopes that tonight will make the memory easier.

"Hello, Danielle," she says awkwardly, unsure how to address her daughter's memory when she has only ever seen a glimpse of the person Danielle was.

"I'm so sorry I haven't been for so long. I needed to sort my head out because- well because it was a complete mess. I hope you're ok my darling, wherever you are," her voice falters, tears threatening to spill again from her eyes. She thinks of Holly, her other daughter, the daughter who is still alive and has only Ronnie to rely on waiting for her in the car and her confidence returns.

"If you can hear me I just want you to know how sorry I am that we never met, that you died thinking I hated you. I didn't hate you; I loved you more than I ever thought it was possible to love anything. I wish I'd have been given to the chance to know you because I know that unlike me you were a lovely young woman who deserved better than someone like me as a mother. I'm so sorry,"

She can't stop herself when the tears start to fall and sink willingly into the dirt. But maybe she needs to cry for her daughter for a final time before she moves on. Suddenly she starts to laugh, considering how insane she must look knelt in the dirt and talking to a gravestone as if it is a person. Delirious, fevered, she cries into the night, her sobs still mixed with laughter. She clutches at her chest, the space in her heart never feeling emptier that it does in this instant, clawing at the weeds covering Danielle's grave with her other hand. They shouldn't be there. Someone should have brought flowers, should me making sure Danielle has a nice place to sleep.

But no one ever visits. Danielle is as forgotten in death as she was in life.

"Excuse me, are you ok, Miss?" a gentle hand, warm and tender touches her shoulder. The deep voice is as soft as a baby's skin. She stops crying instantly, the laughs evaporating into the darkness. She jerks away from the stranger, turning on him ferociously.

"Get away from me! Go on," she shoves him hard in the chest. "Just leave me alone! I don't want you anywhere near here. It should just be me and Amy," she yells at him.

"Is there anyone I can-?" he begins before screams over his voice.

"Why are you still here? Leave us alone! I just want to be with Amy," she weeps.

The man steps forward. He has dark hair and a wide mouth with small lines running off from the corners: laughter lines. Although his eyes are kind, shadows lurk behind them that whisper stories of his past, probably fraught with sorrow just like Ronnie's. He wraps his arms around and Ronnie stiffens, shocked. She can't remember the last time anyone has been there to comfort her and she finds herself falling into him, her cries muffled by his shirt.

"I lost my daughter too," he begins to talk, rambling without caring if she is listening or not. Maybe he just needs someone to tell and he doesn't care who, or maybe he hopes it will somehow calm her down. " Her name was Megan. When she was born her heart was the wrong way around the doctors told us that she might live 3 years or she might live 30. She was only 9 when she died. I didn't know what I'd do without her, but somehow I managed," he falls silent again then, his voice trailing away pointlessly into the snow.

They remain like that for a while, with Ronnie crying numbly in his arms as he stands and lets her with his arms hung at his side, limp. Eventually she looks up when her sobs finally cease. She flashes him a weak smile.

"I'm sorry. I don't make a habit of attacking strangers then ruining their shirts," she tells him, noticing the damp patch her cheek has made against the fabric of his clothing.

He shrugs. "It's ok. Everyone needs someone to yell at sometimes. Lucky I was here really," he tries to smile back, but it falters, his mouth remaining set in a line.

Silence hangs between them, tense and awkward, neither of them knowing what to say after meeting in such a dramatic manner for the first time.

He is the first to break it.

"It never gets any easier, does it?" he asks her. She doesn't have to ask what he means; Ronnie already knows because that is what she has spent the last two years finding out.

"No…I don't think it does," she agrees.

They say time heals a wound.

It isn't true.

Whoever said that probably never lost anyone.

Because Ronnie knows that time has only made things worse for her.

"I've got another little girl though now. Holly. She's in the car," she points over her shoulder at the red rover waiting for her, now covered in snow. "She makes things a little easier, worth living for,"

"Good," he tries to smile, but she can sense that he resents her for having another child when he clearly doesn't. "Where's her Dad?"

"She doesn't have a father," her reply is curt, cold. Harsher than she intended.

"Everyone has a Dad. Is he a good man," he asks.

The question catches her of guard, but she already knows the answer. "Yes. He's a very good man. The best,"

"Then you should tell him. I know Megan is dead, but those nine years she was alive were the best of my life. Don't deprive your daughter's father the chance of knowing his little girl,"

She isn't sure how to answer, had never expected to have to answer that tonight.

"Maybe I will," she says. "Thank you…?" she starts to head towards her car, back to holly.

"Julian,"

"Thanks, Julian. Again, I'm sorry about the shirt,"

He brushes aside her apology with a wave of his hand.

"Goodbye,"

She gets in the car then and turns the key, engine groaning in protestation as it comes to life again. When she drives away the only thing she can see is the image of the stranger called Julian standing there watching her, his hands in his pocket as he stands by his daughter's grave.

Coming here tonight hasn't brought her closure; if anything it as only opened up the delicate wound Danielle's death created again, fresh grief pouring into it. But it has made her realise one thing:

Julian is right.

The man she considers Holly's father is a good man and he deserves to know his daughter just as much as Holly deserves to have a father. Her mind is made up, her path is clear; he needs to know the truth.

The thought fills her with dread, but she has to return to Albert Square.

_**It took forever to write that! Sorry it's so bad. It started of ok and got progressively worse. Sorry about the length. Make sure you tell me if I over described things! See you soon.**_


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